We’ve launched rockpapershotgun.de!

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A quick look at our traffic tells me that Germany is currently Rock, Paper, Shotgun’s third largest audience. That’s a lot of people, and if you’re one of them, we’ve made something for you. It’s rockpapershotgun.de! A new site that both translates our articles into German and produces new original work just for German readers.

This project is one of the things made possible by RPS joining Gamer Network earlier this year. GN has been translating websites like Eurogamer into other languages for years and rockpapershotgun.de is benefiting from that experience.

If you’re a German reader, pop over and say hello to Sebastian Thor, who is leading the work. We hope you find the new site useful, and you can let the team there know your thoughts by emailing kontakt@rockpapershotgun.de.

Actually, I have never heard anyone enumerate it in this order. I am much more used to “Stein, Schere, Papier”. And a quick Google search produces more results for “stein schere papier” than for “schere stein papier”.

So I would use steinschereschrotflinte.de. Also has a much better rythm than the other way around.

In germany, the game is most commonly know as “ching-chang-chong”. You could make it “chingchangschrotflinte.de”.
But tbh, while the idea of a german version looks nice on paper, it`s most certainly an utter waste of time and resources.
Perlen vor die Säue.

Uhm, thanks, I guess? If you don’t mind I’ll stick with the English version. Please don’t try to force German language IPs (Germany/Austria/parts of Switzerland) to the German site by default like IGN tried way back when.

Yes, please don’t redirect us on purpose! There are no shenanigans at the moment, but as a native English-like speaker an a foreign land, it really peeves me when I’m forced over to a .de version. (I’ll forgive accidents caused by experimental lever-pulling in WordPress, though, don’t worry.)

That said, juhu! Maybe I’ll finally learn the correct genders of all the things…

I agree. One very minuscule, almost infinitessimal reason why I actually visit RPS is its very britishness and international audience. I might be tempted to go for a look or two, but my guess is you won´t be able to convey the right amount of germanness coupled with an adequate audience (I´m not even trying for silliness).

No. There will be an adequately regulated and monitored emission-trading-scheme, naturally.
It will generate different, independent, certifying bodies, naturally.
These will, in the end, employ far more analysts than RPS ever did. Naturally.
Sadly.

Now this is something I didn’t expect!
Pretty nice for the RPS team as a whole that you are expanding to other languages.
Although I’m german I wouldn’t switch to the other site, since I’m already used to the writing style of our dear writer and a single translator will not be able to reflect that. But I guess I’m not the target audience, this is most likely a way to get more new readers.

I’m also disappointed of the total lack of puns in the titles! :)

I’ve also noticed that the articles themselves are in german, the website as such is not. I’m guessing this is a work in progress?

I don’t speak German, so this is of no real concern to me, but I just browsed the German version out of curiosity and noticed a weird thing: why is every original author of the translated articles properly credited EXCEPT Alice, who is replaced in every single instance by ‘RPS UK’?+

Edit: Somehow related, I’ve also noticed the ‘alt text’ jokes (which are almost exclusively used by Alice, but not just her) are also absent.

Heh. In the nineties, I made some money translating San Antonio (Frédéric Dard) into a couple of Slavic languages. Some San Antonio books must approach one pun per line, and Slavic languages, especially the recently reformed ones, do not lend themselves to puns. If it were not for gratuitous profanity, I could have never made it work.

I wonder whether there is a point to the alternative version of the website. English is only my fourth language, but I would never even dream of reading the articles in something else but the original language.

To be honest, anything having to do with gaming, programming, and computer science is a pain to read in most other languages, no matter how well I speak them.

Wat? As a german, I don’t really know what to think of this: One the one hand I feel flattered, on other hand I kinda prefer to read the site in english. Will the articles by Sebastian Thor (this name is so german it seems made up) also be translated to the english site?

Different infinities are not equal in size or speed. For instance, while both the set “all real numbers” and the set “all integers” are infinite, the fomer is larger than the latter (and I suppose the set “all rational numbers” are larger than the “all integer”-set, but smaller than the “all real”-set)

So depending on which set Horace currently inhabits(?) maybe he will bump up into a larger one?

Also, if Horace is charcterized by (??) the “all integer”-set does that mean he’s exhibiting macro-level quantum effects, since the integer-set is discreet values?

Being German, I would advise against overextending …
Have (only very quickly) scanned it, and think the specific ‘RPS’ tone of voice doesn’t carry over that well …
Entschuldigung – es tut mir sehr leid! Hope you don’t mind me staying here on the ‘real’ RPS for now.

Excellent! One more step towards total subjugation of the Zwischennetz!

Well, I can’t see myself taking up the kindly offer of reading RPS in my mother’s toungue much, but this is perfect for the few friends of mine who are young enough to game and still don’t speak English well enough to be referred to your fabulous content. I hope this pays off and you can reel in a couple of new members for the Cult of Horace.

I’ll probably stick to the original with occasional peeks to the new site here and there, since the games-related part of my mind pretty much switched languages a couple of years back and it would feel very weird to go back. But I assume new readers are your target audience anyway.

This seems like such a difficult task, to translate the particular tone of RPS into German.
From what I’ve seen so far, some articles read almost machine-written because the translations are so literal.
The cheeky and tone-rich playfulness of the original turns into an uncanny and artificial and somehow overly wordy writing style when translated word by word. A looser “translation in spirit” would maybe read more natural.

My fellow Americans, when will we get our own version of RPS? For how long will we suffer superfluous “u”s, references to eggs eaten in Scotland, and frighteningly malformed symbols of value that mock the true and perfect $? When will be have a space where articles are not cruelly posted between 10pm and 6am EST, letting all the best and funniest comments be stolen by foreigners while we sleep to prepare for another 10 hour workday that could always be our last? A website that advocates for NASCAR games being as prestigious as F1 games? A website that doesn’t confuse me when making foot-to-ball jokes accompanied by a graphic of a soccer game, a game reserved for school children, not adults? An RPS by the people, for the people!

Thanks for the offer but I’ll pass, I guess. I wandered in here by chance some years ago and stayed for the puns and the pleasant and/or thoughtfull and/or hilarious comments (is this level of maturity even legal on the internet?).

All for the German translation
I do think its unfair to segregate certain articles just for German users.
I thought this was a game site for all walks of life in the international gaming arena, with holding game articles because they are supposedly best suited Germany is wrong.
GAMING IS INTERNATIONAL.

Actually, I think gaming should be international as well as regional (please note: not national or exclusive).
Some jokes don´t translate well. And shouldn´t.
I also think some themes won´t work internationally nor should they be translocated.
I´d really like pc-gmaing to develop niches.
Culture-specific oddballs, if you like.
I´m putting up silly ultra-localized themes to illustrate:Fingerhakeln,Hornussen,
or themes that are universally acknowledged, but have strong local character:Carnival
These would naturally cater to a small, mainly local, audience. BUT. Anyone interested might have a go.
There was a very rendition of that idea in one of the Hitman games. A contract during Mardi Gras. I really liked the atmosphere, but kept wondering how someone from St. Louis might react to the scenario.
In this vein, some articles would then be only of interest fo those in the community. Be it Salvadorian-American, Bhutanian, Basque or German, for that matter.

As a professional translator, I must say the German site makes a pretty damn good first impression. Ofc all the punnery has to be toned way down so as not to get mangled beyond recognition, but I like that the tone is a lot less serious overall.
My guess would be there is machine translation with a degree of post-editing happening. (have you tried link to deepl.com googletranslate is a lame duck) Also, I wouldn’t mind exploring career change options to work on this baby if any more help is needed :)

As a reader, I didn’t see this coming at all – like many of my fellow Germans I prefer to consume content in the original language where possible (Thank you Sir Terry).

As long as Leo Fischer won’t be writing about games, there is no reason to read any games related German website at all. There simply is no one with the ability to write good articles and/or has even a remote sense of humor.